Disaster Planning: What We Have (and Haven\u27t) Learned

Basic disaster planning is not only cost-effective but relatively easy to integrate with other planning activities. By looking at the experiences of lawyers and law firms that have survived disasters in recent years, it is possible to gain insights that will help us overcome such adversity. Transactional business lawyers, whose clients are frequently the victims of the same forces that harm lawyers, have a special obligation to serve these clients in times of crisis in order to restore these businesses to functionality and commerce to the community at large

If We Don\u27t Take Care of Young Lawyers, Who Will?

There are now more than 450,000 lawyers in this country, almost double the number of 20 years ago. The American Association of Law Schools estimates that the number of law student graduates averages about 34,000 a year. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor projects that there will be 26,400 new legal jobs each year until 1985. If law school enrollments stay at their current level, that would mean about 8,000 graduates each year would not be able to find a law-related job

Multijurisdictional Practice of Law: Recent Developments in the National Debate

This Article will explore the development of multijurisdictional practice in the United States and abroad. Part III will discuss the positions taken by various participants in the current debate on multijurisdictional practice. Part IV will examine the actions of the American Bar Association House of Delegates in August 2002 and the implications of those actions for lawyers. Part V will conclude that MJP reform is critical to the future of the legal profession in the United States as a fundamental tool for American business to remain competitive in the globalized marketplace for goods and services

Opening Remarks

Interestingly, there is hardly any scholarship, and very little discussion, about the MacCrate Report outside of the clinical and skills programs in the traditional segments of legal education. I am not a clinician, although in the past I have taught courses in interviewing and counseling, and negotiations. I teach Law Practice Management and Professional Responsibility, which address professional skills and values; but I teach Torts as well, and my Torts colleagues, like teachers in other traditional subjects, really do not focus on these issues very much. So, one of the things I wanted to do with this symposium was to pull together a different set of speakers and a different group of people, other than those who have been discussing professional skills and values for the past decade. I tried to identify people who were not just teaching in clinics or skills, to bring in some new perspectives. If you look at the agenda for this symposium you will see that the speakers today come from a wide range of places, they have different perspectives, and, yet, they are all interested in skills and values

Dances with Nonlawyers: A New Perspective on Law Firm Diversification

In this Article, Professor Munneke continues the debate over ethical rules governing lawyers\u27 professional affiliations with nonlawyers, arguing in favor of the adoption of uniform rules that regulate lawyers\u27 conduct in the context of specific ethical issues, such as confidentiality and conflicrs of interest. In Professor Munneke\u27s view, the retention of ethical rules that prohibit law firm diversification impedes the ability of lawyers to compete effectively in today\u27s rapidly changing marketplace of professional services. Professor Munneke moreover questions whether state bar association rules that prohibit law firm diversification are capable of withstanding judicial scrutiny under the federal antitrust laws and the First Amendment. According to Professor Munneke, a substantial question exists as to whether the state action exemption should apply to shield these rules from antitrust attack. Professor Munneke further asserts that First Amendment theories of freedom of association and commercial speech may impel less restrictive alternatives to the current regulatory scheme

The Lawyer\u27s Duty to Keep Clients Informed: Establishing a Standard of Care in Professional Liability Actions

This Article will explore the problem of the attorney\u27s duty to provide clients with adequate information to make informed decisions. It will discuss situations in which such a duty is appropriate, and suggest that a cause of action for informed consent must be limited to those fact patterns where courts have established the right of the client to make the decision. The analysis rejects establishment of a broad right of the client to control all aspects of the representation. The Article will first review the history of the development of professional liability law with particular emphasis on the medical profession, including an analysis of why informed consent has evolved as a cause of action. Second, the Article will review the development of the legal malpractice field giving particular attention to the failure of the courts to adopt a parallel informed consent doctrine for lawyers. Third, the Article will look at the evolution of ethical standards relating to the duty to keep clients informed, and it will address the problem of whether such a duty can or should be adopted as a standard of care in a legal malpractice action. Fourth, the Article will propose a limited cause of action grounded in tort, based upon the attorney\u27s duty to keep the client reasonably informed in situations specifically identified in the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct

A Response to Thomas Steele

The problem with adjunct professors teaching a course in law practice management is that they really are not in a position to think and write about the big issues, the way that full-time faculty members are; they generally have full-time responsibilities in a law firm. The law practice management field loses something valuable when so many of its teachers are part time. Although these professors bring practical experience to the classroom, they do not contribute in a larger way to the law school curriculum as a whole, or to the literature of the legal profession

Is Your Career on Target?

The author writes about nonlegal careers for lawyers

Why Practice Management?

Today, lawyers must regard the practice of law as a business, inasmuch as they earn their livelihood from the practice of law. The marketplace for legal services is a competitive one; not only has the size of the profession more than quadrupled in the past 50 years, but other professions and businesses have also begun to perform services traditionally restricted to lawyers. For example, accounting firms have encroached on tax litigation, banks in the trusts and estates area, and financial planners in estate planning. In a series of cases, the United States Supreme Court has made it clear that lawyers cannot prevent the development of this competition from both within and without the legal profession

Legal Skills for a Transforming Profession

The legal profession is undergoing dramatic changes that will drive a reformation in legal education. Legal educators must anticipate these changes to effectively prepare students for the practice of law in the twenty-first century. In order to be proficient practitioners, these students will require an expanded set of professional skills. Although the current legal skills paradigm was articulated by the American Bar Association MacCrate Task Force in 1991, it is time to reexamine legal skills with an eye toward preparing students to practice law in the new millennium. In Section II, this article examines trends in modern society and the delivery of legal services to consumers. Section III explores the phenomenon of change in legal education. Section IV addresses the question of professional skills as described in the MacCrate Task Force Report. Section V articulates an updated list of critical skills and values, consistent with the earlier work of the MacCrate Task Force, but reflective of the larger changes that are transforming the practice of law. The article concludes with an admonition: lawyers will need this new skill set to practice competently in the twenty-first century and legal educators will need to fundamentally restructure the law school curriculum in order to prepare lawyers for the emerging practice of law